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Friday, December 20, 2013

Jewish oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky free after Putin pardon

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Friday
pardoning jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, after he spent a decade in jail,
the Kremlin said. A few hours later he left prison, his lawyer reported.

Putin announced unexpectedly on Thursday that he would
pardon Khodorkovsky, in what may be a gesture to critics of his human rights
record before Russia hosts the Winter Olympics.

The decree pardoned Khodorkovsky on the basis of "the
principles of humanism". The Kremlin said the decree took immediate effect
and Russian news agencies quoted a lawyer as saying it was possible that the
former Yukos oil company chief could be freed as early as Friday.

Khodorkovsky, 50, was
once Russia's richest man and is seen by Kremlin critics as a political
prisoner. He fell out spectacularly with Putin a decade ago. His company,
Yukos, was broken up and sold off, mainly into state hands, following his
arrest at gunpoint on an airport runway in Siberia on fraud and tax evasion
charges in 2003.

He became a symbol of what investors say is the Kremlin's
abuse of the courts for political ends. The Kremlin denies this but Putin has
singled Khodorkovsky out for bitter personal attacks and ignored many calls for
his release.

On Thursday, however, Putin said: "He has been in jail
already more than 10 years. This is a serious punishment."

Saying Khodorkovsky's mother was ill and that he had asked
for clemency, he added: "I decided that with these circumstances in mind
... a decree pardoning him will be signed."

Russian shares rose over 1 percent on the news, though later
settled back by the end of the day.

A sustained rally would require "a consistent track
record of implementation of market-friendly reforms - in particular, of steps
to improve the judicial system, so that decisions are more predictable and
property rights better protected," a Moscow-based economist at an
investment bank said.

Lawyers for Khodorkovsky initially said he had not sought
clemency but his representatives later said they were trying to reach him in
prison near the Arctic Circle to clarify matters.

An early release had not been expected and there had even
been speculation that new charges might be brought against him, as they were
before his sentence was extended in 2010 after a second trial for theft and
money-laundering.

Khodorkovsky began dabbling in small business as a Moscow
student Communist leader under Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika reforms of the
late 1980s. Still in his 30s, he emerged from the cut-throat chaos of the
Soviet collapse as one of the wealthiest "oligarchs" under Putin's
predecessor Boris Yeltsin.

His fall from grace after criticizing Putin, a former KGB
officer, has long been held up by foreign investors as evidence of the weakness
of property rights and the rule of law in Russia.